43 inches

How long are all you guys?

Dear Sir

Mail! Mail from my old island pal Himal. I love getting mail. We have a little mail door that you open up to see what the mailman has left for you when you wake up from your nap. And there's already been lots of mail for me.


Anyone who sends mail to me, I will send mail back to, probably with a portrait and definitely with my signature, g-u-s, which I can do, by myself, no help. You'll have to ask my mom for the address because I don't know the whole thing, just that we live in the radical town of Portland.


Thank you Himal, for sending me the cool painting that you did, which is up in my room and also thank you for not forgetting about me. See u soon!

all ageless

This is Jenna. She is my uncle Mike's girlfriend and she came to town with her band the The Mika Miko and my mom went out to see them play along with all Mike's LA posse, The Abe Vigoda and The No Age. According to my mom, Jenna is the scene stealer because she plays saxaphone and sings the good deep vocals.


Uncle Mike called and texted my mom and Jenna every 12 minutes all day and all night because he was very nervously excited for these two important women of his life to meet minds.


He can now breath easy and rest assured that it was a successful meeting and the friendship is secured good and tight.


This is a 13 year old girl from the audience that Mama could not take her eyes off of because she looked like my mom did when my mom was 5 years old but this girl was in a custom all white suit and knew every word to every band and had a super cool mom dancing behind her. Portland!


The next morning after we let mom sleep in and then brought her breakfast in bed because Dad and I are pretty decent men, we all went for second breakfasts to meet up with Jenna and her buddies. "Is she your buddy? Is he your buddy? You sure have a lot of buddies!"


My friendship with Jenna is also not goin' anywhere anytime soon, on account of the fact that we all think she is very lovable.

last one in's a pickle pump!

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This is my swim class. I've been going every day for a week now and I have one more week to go. My teacher is a long haired name John but my dad calls him Gibby. He's pretty serious about swim teachig so I'm always trying to crack jokes and make him laugh. I am the best at blowing bubbles in my class, maybe in the world for all I know. As you can see, I am the only one who follows John's instructions and for that reason I am his favorite but don't tell my swim classmates because as Bobby always tells me, no one likes a suck up.

The Past, The Now

Did you guys know that my mom and Lisa have been best friends since the seventh grade? That is practically all their life. And now, after years and years of living in different cities, far from each other and from each other's kids, we all live together in the town of Portland where we can see each other whenever we want. These two old pals have been doing a lot of palling around already. They did a garage sale together to get rid of a lot of old crap and sat around looking at all six yearbooks, from 7th grade to senior year in high school, a long parade of unattractive hairstyles and fashion outfits and prom dates, and they laughed and laughed at themselves and tried to defend their youth. And I made a promise to myself: I will, no matter what the state of fashion in my life, never get a perm.

Quit Naming Trees!

B-O-B-B-Y!
Grandpa came for a visit. It's only been two weeks since we've seen each other but we've figured out that this is about as long as we can go. I was SO happy to see him. I took him everywhere. We went to all my favorite breakfast joints, pancakes both days and later even my first ever root beer float. Now I know why dad loves beer, it's delicious! And we had tree naming time, and stupid tent time and drive all over the place listening to jazz time and he even built us our very own picnic table while he was here. I'm telling you that he is a real great guy! Bobby loves Portland as much as we do which means he'll come back often. He's my best bud.

Everybody Wins

Last night Mom and Dad went out for their first night out in Portland. Uncle Nicky was touring through with the Whalebones and they went out to a club to see him rock n roll.


Justin W.Bone


Pre-show bracer.


Post-bracer grimace.


It was a rocking good show except it was too late in the night for this old pair of parents. They had fun but nowhere near as much fun as I had. I got to go to a slumber party at Lisa's with my new babysitters Emily and Greta Bug. We played croquet and water gun squirting and this new really fun game called Tag. I was so IT! And we went to the park and I played basketfall and played with a bunch of boys my age and was telling them all my funny jokes about turkey buns and basketball face and Justin Timberpickle and every had the best time laughing and running around. Then it was bedtime and Emily read me a story and tucked me in and I went to sleep real well and woke up real early and got to watch Shrek the Third until Mama eventually got up and came to get me. I love slumber parties!


I love my babysitters!


We love living in the same town as our friends!

Parallel Parking

This is my park. It is three short blocks from my house. Play time is a cinch.


It's full of tall trees just like everywhere up in these parts and there is an explosion of toddlers. Perfect for me, harder for Mama as she tries to worm our way into the filled up preschools, but all in all a huge perk.


There are jungle gyms and swings and teeter totters and tennis courts and baseball diamonds and kite flying fields and basketball courts always filled with loud lively games and crazy old and tall and very retro slides that I'm a bit weary of. Who of you will be the first to come up here and visit my park?

box by box

So, this is the inside of our new house. I'd show you more, but this is basically it right now, piles of clothes all over the floor. Mama, it turns out, was quite a clothes horse in her LA days and now she can't believe how much stuff she had. She hasn't seen her clothes and shoes and purses for years so its been like a major shopping spree opening up all the boxes, but she is putting most of it into a giant To Sell pile so watch out all you fashioney girls of Portland because my mom's wardrobe is going to be on the market soon. Personally, I just like to laze around on it all in my crime fighters. Very comfortable wear!

Honest Aza

So we've been moving on and moving in. It took us a LONG while to actually move on but the moving in is going pretty quick. Every little thing is finding its new little place. While Mom and Dad set up the house, Aza and I set up my backyard tent. It sure was fun having Aza around these first days of Portland experiencing. Every morning he was here, he would wake up to me standing over him staring down at his face until he woke up. We spent a lot of time together, had a lot of pretty deep conversations that will make him stick permanently in my memories of our big move here. Now that I've really learned what it is to be sad when you say goodbye to people, I felt it all over again when I said goodbye to Aza.




Come back soon, my man.

and so this chapter comes to its close...

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Well...geez. I'm going to try to get through this without my bottom lip getting shaky. We have moved on. We left our life in Bainbridge Island and moved to Portland Oregon. Daddy and Aza drove the big truck up from Los Angeles, stopping to sight see and bury Dad's books in random dirt and ATV over sand dunes. Bobby drove his truck packed full of all our things. Mama and I drove our car, packed so full we couldn't even see out the windows, and we all met up at our new doorstep twenty minutes apart from each other. There is synchronicity happening already. It was humid and rainy and there were firecracker explosions everywhere and the whole everything felt strange and dramatic and very neat.

But all I can think about is what I left back there in those tall trees. When Grandpa left here and gave me the last hug (until he comes back to visit next week), I said, "this is sad". Well, there you go. To say I miss my old house, to say I miss Bobby and Mamop, is not expressing it enough. I mass them. I muss them. At least every time I close my eyes I see all this:



People used to always ask my mom, "how did you live with your in-laws for over two years?", like she had climbed to the top of Mt.Everest or something. And she would always say, "if you knew Gary and Susan, you would understand. They are the best people in the world. They are my greatest friends." Thank you for putting up with us for so long. We honestly swear we had only planned to stay 4 months. But it was in your house that our lives made the biggest changes, all for the better, and we owe all that to you.

more misses..

Nicky and Mamop. Two more giant miss you's. What am I going to... I guess I just have to grow up and be a man about this, right? It's not like they're gone from my life. My Nana and Papa, cousins, aunts and other Uncle Mike live far from me and I still love them just the same. It's just that Mamop and I spend every morning together drinking juice and talking. But, I'm not going to be a sap anymore, I promise.

For our last fun adventure together, Mamop took me to the ZOO! Just the two of us. It was the best!!! I saw a million hundred animals. And we rode the carousel too. And we had popcorn. And french fries. Great day.


My favorite: the lovely giraffe.


Mamop's favorite: the sad and soulful gorilla.


The Gusapillar.

Last Looks

The Bloedel Reserve. Definitely gonna miss that. There's just no better place to take a peaceful stroll.






I really have been taking it all in, my last looks, reflecting on my life here on Bainbridge Island.

NOT 4 GOT 10

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These guys. My true blue pals.


Himal. My one and only island homie. What would I have done out here without him? We kind of grew into little men together. Now when we hug, we squeeze so hard that our moms have to break it up. I'm getting pretty sad just thinking about how I'll miss him.


And Lishu and Baby Kai. What would Mama have done out here without Lishu? She would have ended up in the looney bin and the funny farm, that's a fact.


And Emmett. My Seattle sidekick. Crazy old Emmett. And his mom Amanda and my mom got pretty tight. Isn't that cool how we both get a friend out of it? I hope we are as lucky in our new town...
It is a good thing Portland is not too far away. All these guys are already planning fun train trips to see me. But still, I will miss them all. Real bad.